been on The Danny Kaye Show.… And so wekept saying we’ve got to get a Harvey Korman.”In the meantime, the Kaye show ended and,Burnett adds, “We got Harvey Korman.”Discovering Vicki Lawrence was a fluke,the kind of story you might expect to find inan old Broadway musical.

Burnett had envisioned a segment whereshe would have a kid sister. Lawrence, then ahigh school student, had sent her a fan letter.“I loved the letter,” Burnett says. “She wasvery smart and it was sweet. She said‘Everybody says that I remind them of you.’ ”Enclosed was a newspaper clipping with apicture of Lawrence and an article about hercompeting in the Miss Fireball of Inglewoodcontest. Burnett says, “I looked at that pictureand I thought, ‘Oh my God! That could beme at UCLA.”The contest was that night, and Burnettand her husband, who would be producingTheCarol Burnett Show, attended.

Lawrence won. Burnett went backstage
afterwards and said they’d be calling her in for
an audition. Although she was competing

with experienced actresses, Lawrence won the
job. “It took about two or three years before
she started to really come into her own as an
actress,” Burnett recalls. “She was kind of going
to a comedy school in front of a lot of people
every week. Harvey would work with her on
accents and character motivation and stuff like
that. And then she just started blossoming, and
that’s how we got Vicki.” Burnett points out
that today she never would have lasted a week,
but the network trusted Burnett’s team.

The cast was originally rounded out with
actor and announcer Lyle Waggoner. Tim
Conway began as a guest star. “We had him as
a guest a couple of times in the first season,”
says Burnett. “He was so funny we kept bringing him back. It was almost like he was a semi-regular. He was on maybe twice a month.”
Conway finally became a regular weekly performer in 1974 or 1975, per Burnett, and it
was his frequent ad-libbing that usually kept
the audience, as well as the rest of the cast,
in hysterics.

“You never knew [what to expect], and it
was usually gold,” says Burnett.

The show also established Burnett’s generosity as a performer, as she allowed her cast
mates and guest stars to grab the spotlight,
even if they pulled it away from her.

“I learned all of that from Garry Moore,”
she says. “We would have a table reading
on Mondays.… There might be a sketch that
Neil [Simon] had written, and Garry had
a punch line. He’d say, ‘Give this to Durward
Kirby; he could say it funnier than I can. Or
give this to Carol or Marion Lorne or whatever.’
“The thing is that people talked about it
and enjoyed it. It was still great for the show. I
always loved it when Tim would get on a roll,
[or] Harvey, Vicki or any of us. And then they
would hand it over to me at times. It was a
true rep company. That’s what I wanted.”

Icon status

Due to that quirky little contract button,the talents of a superlative cast and qualitywriting, the show ran on CBS from September
11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes.It won 25 Emmy Awards, five Golden Globesand 12 People’s Choice Awards; was ranked16th on TV Guide’s list of “ 50 Greatest TVShows of All Time” in 2002; and, in 2007, waslisted as one of Time magazine’s “ 100 Best TVShows of All Time.”Today, Burnett is still in demand. “I workwhen I want to work,” she says. In addition toguest-starring on TV, she makes occasionalpersonal appearances, showing clips andanswering questions from the audience. Andwhenever she does, she works in a little tug ofher ear, a tradition that stems back to her firstappearance on live television.

“I called my grandmother, from NewYork to California,” Burnett relates. “I said,‘Nanny, I’m going to be on The Paul WinchellShow tomorrow morning, so be sure to watchme. She said, ‘Well, you have to say hello tome.’ I said, ‘I don’t think NBC is going to letme go, ‘Hi, Nanny.’ So we worked out this sig-nal of pulling my left ear.”There will never be another Carol BurnettShow, but, thankfully, we still have the old oneto provide hours of entertainment. C

The Costco
Connection

Costco is carrying a
seven-DVD set of

The Carol Burnett
Show, with episodes
personally chosen
by Burnett, and
exclusive material.